Plato's Academy? Let's see, now, how did its student population compare> with your average state university? Better, maybe, your average competent> high school graduate who is not college-bound? Able to get over Pons> Asinorum?>

The student population? Hardly worth an answer.

Plato lies in the roots of liberal education: and education worthy of afree man. The population of Athens at its height was probably about200,000, of which maybe 25,000 were citizens---and thus "free men". Thenotion that such a small population could have supported an academypopulated by students whose minds were of the quality of Euclid, Aristotle,or Plato is simply laughable.

--Louis A. Talman Department of Mathematical and Computer Sciences Metropolitan State College of Denver